I came across the following news item today which might be of interest to many of the readers of this blog: as part of a bipartisan effort (headed by Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME) and Sen. Ben Nelson (D-NE)) to reduce the size of the U.S. federal government stimulus package (currently at over $900 billion) by about $77 billion, the entire appropriation for the National Science Foundation (NSF) in the package ($1.4 billion – about 0.15% of the entire stimulus package) is being proposed to be eliminated, with significant cuts in related agencies (NASA, DOE office of science, NOAA, etc.). The $1.4 billion for the NSF in the Senate version of the package is already a reduction from the $2.5 billion allocated in the House version.

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